Sunday, January 27, 2008

Mozart's B-day + A music lesson for the day

Argent by the Tiber has a post reminding us today is the birthday of one of my favorite composers - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This genius began his musical career at the tender age of five, writing his first symphony at the age of eight, and his first opera at the age of eleven (some sources say twelve). In his lifetime he managed to produce well over six hundred major compositions, and had a major influence over contemporary composers of his time (Beethoven).

Among his most popular compositions (I'm mentioning just a few. Too many to list completely) are his Requiem Mass, K.626; Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K.183; Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K.467; Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550. Not listed are his many piano and violin sonatas, as well as violin, horn, and piano concertos, string quartets, string duos and string trios, operas and divertimentos, serenades, masses, and many miscellaneous compositions.

By the way, the "K" next to Mozart's compositions and the numbers that follow it are known as the Kochel numbers, or, if you prefer, the K-numbers. Ludwig Ritter von Köchel (1800-1877) was a musicologist, writer, composer, and botanist, who catalogued the works of Mozart.

Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K.467

Ave verum corpus, K.618

Symphony No.25 in G minor, K.183

Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550

Also, if I'm not mistaken, he also wrote the 1985 hit Rock Me Amadeus (posthumously published) and performed by Austrian pop star, Falco. LOL!

"Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."~~ Franz Joseph Hayden to Leopold Mozart

7 comments:

I will have to listen to your music tomorrow as I am busy listening to the St. Agnus (St. Paul) choir. I just made a very fast $100.00 on ebay and downloaded 57 minutes of wonderful sacred music (for free.) Life just doesn't get any better!

Maybe if we both start spelling it correctly it might be easier. Agnes not Agnus - see what happens when I don't have an editor?? Most the time I do all my comments in Word and cut and paste just to correct my spelling.

http://stagnes.net/

I downloaded Adoramus Te. It is quite nice. I had to right click and use the "save target only" thingy (see bottom of page) The files are in Mp3 but my hubby is going to convert it to wave so I can play it somewhere besides my computer.

I listened to some of the music and I LOVED it!! Thank you so much for steering me in their direction:) I will have to go and listen fully to ALL the tracks available later on tonight. Right now I'm so beat that I'm writing this comment beseeched by the same boredom I encounter when I read Katie's blog.

Katie, I'M KIDDING!!! NO hate mail, please. LOL! I had to pick on someone and I just got off your blog. Look at it this way, I was thinking of ya! LMAO! We're still blogger-friends, right? LOL